Stardust
by Wintry Leen
Summary: And there was love. RyoSaku. Oneshot. #38


**a/n:** coz i can't sleep and i'm supposed to be doing something school-related. and i need to write out this rust beneath my fingertips. also i didn't know that RyoSaku has been canon since July last year! 2014 is indeed a great year for us, fellow shippers. Rejoice!

Sakuno-centric.

* * *

 _Stardust_

By the windowsill, Ryuzaki Sakuno waits. The inky sky is littered with glints of dust, nothing new. But she waits. A streak of frost, a disturbance, is all she needs, a sign that says: "Your wait is done. This is the end. Tomorrow marks a start. Good job."

Four years ago, at the night of his departure, she told a peaceful goodbye (a wave, a smile, smile) and camped out under the sky after, witnessed a falling star and wished, she wished, he'd come back home. Soon. Sooner.

She waits for that same star to come. _Because_ , she thinks, _it couldn't be dead, right?_

 _Her feelings couldn't be._ Right?

She's been holding on to this bubbling, churning, raging mass of nebula inside her ever since twelve, and she's twenty-two now, and she feels like exploding.

She's been a good friend to him. That's what he wanted. Ryoma Echizen is never a lover. In her dreams, eyes open or half-so, maybe, but when he holds her, it's always his hand gripping her racket, his form behind hers, never touching, never that kind of miscalculation.

She's been stable. Her feelings are, too. He treats her well. Like a friend. Like how he treats Momo or any of his teammates.

And she has stopped dreaming of possibilities, has tried dissolving whatever is inside her and throwing it into an abyss – yes, like that inhabitable space between two lines because one time, he taught her about geometry, and the concept of parallel lines was all she could remember.

For six years, Ryoma called her Ryuzaki, and it marked her place. She tried telling him about whatever has been going on inside her for the sake of being friends – honesty is all that matters, supposedly – but always, Ryoma's honesty is sharper, blunt.

" _I'm planning to go abroad. More opportunities for me out there. It's always been my dream."_

And who is she to hold him back?

But then again, who is he to hold her back?

It's been four years, and she hasn't made a step forward. It's hard to when all she sees are his footprints numbering away from her. She cannot catch up. He's never given her a chance.

But she yearns still. Perhaps when he returns, it's a return to her. And maybe they won't have to return to being friends. Maybe together they'll take a step forward, towards something new. And then he'll hold her hand, and she won't have to let it go ever again.

For every passing day that she didn't see him, she had imagined how it would be – seeing Ryoma again.

And it's only now that she realized that reality always holds more weight: In his presence, she'll forever be deprived of speech, or if lucky, simply stuttering. So Sakuno.

His irises are of the same hue; his cheekbones, higher; arms, more toned; smile – no, a smirk, has always been that smirk.

Does he know she hasn't changed at all?

"Ryuzaki."

She used to call him Ryoma-kun. But it's been four years, and he's back, and she's not okay. They're not even friends now. There was no petty exchange of letters nor midnight phone calls. It's always been Sakuno hearing about him from her grandma. She doubts he even knows what she's been through – finally gave up on tennis, pursued an art career, filled her canvases with his face, a smiling face.

She doubts he even asked.

"Hi."

She tries not to be shy, not to avoid his gaze –searching? – and not to call him Ryoma-kun.

She resolves not to melt even when his gaze doesn't leave her. She gazes back, and she starts getting confused.

She misses him, but she misses something more. She looks at him as if it has always been that way, as if he's never left, as if she doesn't care whether he did or not.

It only takes a little shove from Momo to get his eyes off her, and she will pretend not to see him casting her a final glance.

 _It must have been my imagination again_ , the culprit behind those sketches of his face, smiling, looking at her, finally, after a long, long time.

It's to the usual spot that they go. Horio and Tomoka, now a couple, are already at Kawa's shop when they arrive as a group.

Noticing how close to each other her friends are seated, she seats herself at the corner of the long table, never mind that she's far from the center, from where Ryoma is supposed to have his place. After all, he's the star, _and I've always been just the stargazer_.

It's not party until everyone's laughing, so she pays attention to looking for the cue to laugh, and she'll do it the best that she could even when she doesn't know what she's laughing about or why Ryoma is suddenly beside her.

She feels their stares on them, and she just drinks whatever liquid is in her cup. _Maybe I'm drunk._ _Please let me be drunk._

She doesn't even know if she's escaping from him or from herself. _But we're supposed to be friends!_

"You've been quiet."

 _And you didn't have to feel obliged to talk to me._

The glass slips from her grasp, and it's all thanks to her reflex that she catches it on time though it could've tried to be quicker so that Ryoma wouldn't have to offer his help, wouldn't have to touch her hand as if it meant something. More than catching that same glass.

 _Because it was always the racket and you never tried catching me._

Suddenly, there's only her hands around the glass, and she puts it on the table before looking at him who's unsurprisingly no longer looking at her.

What makes her do it, she'll never know, but she grabs his hand and holds it like how she's done it in her fantasies before. She needs to –

"Ryoma – "

She can't.

"Nothing."

She drops his hand, and she feels like exploding, her eyes becoming wet. She pours herself a drink and downs it and then another one, and another... _No, I'm not drunk._

 _Not anymore._

She's not lost. Dislocated, but not lost.

What has she been holding on after all these years of waiting? _Where was I all along if not on this side of waiting?_

Because she realizes, it's not Ryoma whom she's waiting for. It's herself coming to terms with the loss of what she thinks is a raging mass of nebula inside that exploding supposedly means firework display, not stardust, not _this_.

But she looks at his hand again and then at his face and into his eyes and she only sees black holes.

She comes out of the shop in a daze, but she insists she's not drunk. She starts walking off into the night, and it isn't until she hears his voice that she feels the weight of palm against her arm. It's not cold, not warm, just...heavy.

"Sakuno."

 _Is that my name? Is it me you're calling? I've always been just Ryuzaki to you. Please stop._

She looks at him, noting, again, the same hue of his irises, his higher cheekbones... _there's no bubbling, churning, raging mass of –_

"How are you?"

And for the first time that day, she finds herself smiling. She walks to him, closer and closer, leans her head against his shoulder, and clutches at his shirt.

She wants to say _I miss you. We were friends. I love you. You were. I loved._

But she ends everything with,

"It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt at all."

 _ **...**_

 _ **Fin.**_

(reviews are very much appreciated!)


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